Slamming The Door To Opportunity

We look around us at the murder rate, and the growth of street gangs, and the pervasive sense that civility and respect for diligence and achievement are waning.

We shake our heads at these major problems, and talk about government studies and task forces and long-range solutions.

And meanwhile, a problem that seldom makes headlines is threatening to change something vital and historic in the United States. It seems like merely one trouble out of many-but when you think about it, and what it means, it may be one of the furthest-reaching troubles of all.

It's this: In tough economic times, public libraries in downtown areas of big U.S. cities are struggling to remain open for the long hours necessary to fully serve the public. It sometimes seems that no one is in great financial shape in 1993 America-and one place where money is being saved is in the hours big-city libraries stay open.

Here in Chicago, there is something almost shameful about the fact that the Harold Washington Library Center is open only five days a week, and never past 7 p.m.

Because of budget constraints, the Washington Library-Chicago's main downtown library-isn't open at all on Sundays and Mondays. On Tuesdays and Thursdays the library opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 7 p.m.; on Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays it opens at 9 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m.

One of the great cities of the world-and on Mondays you can't go to its main library, on Sundays (the one day of the week when many people have the free time to go to the library) you can't go, and never, on any day, can you go there after 7 p.m.

We took a survey of 20 libraries, city and suburban, around the U.S. Chicago's downtown library ranks dead last, tied with Detroit, in the number of hours its doors are open to the public. The concept of a library being closed two full days a week is virtually unheard of outside of Chicago, Detroit and New York; everywhere else we checked, libraries were open either seven days or six.

Why is this so important?

Because there are few institutions that are a better measure of how a civilization feels about the inner life of its citizens-and especially its citizens who want to better themselves but do not have the financial means to do it alone. In a world that seems increasingly to be spinning out of control, a fine, well-run public library is more than a respite from the meanness and the madness-it is a sign of opportunity and hope.

Maybe not everyone will take advantage of that beacon of hope-maybe, in an age that often demeans the concept of learning and literacy, that beacon of hope is destined not even to be noticed by many people.

But that's no excuse. We cannot bemoan the growing criminality among low-income young people, we cannot decry the lack of opportunity available to people with little money-and at the same time lock the doors of the library during hours when many people might choose to nourish themselves there. What kind of message is that? You can go into a bar until well past midnight and have a drink, you can get drugs on the street any time of the day or night, you can find trouble wherever you look for it. But try going to the main Chicago library on a Sunday or a Monday. Try going to the main library at 8 p.m.

Consider again that many of the people who might want to make use of the main Chicago library are citizens without the funds to go out and purchase limitless quantities of books for themselves. That's the nature of a big city. Then consider this:

In many of Chicago's more affluent suburbs-where, presumably, the citizens have more disposable income to buy books-the public libraries are open long and generous hours. In Barrington, a child can go to the library seven days a week, and on most nights stay until 9 p.m. Glencoe's library has actually expanded its hours, opening its doors a half-hour earlier than before, at 9 a.m., to accommodate people who want to start reading early. In Highland Park citizens can go into their library most nights until 9 p.m., the same as citizens of Oak Brook and Winnetka can go into theirs.

Maybe it's just another sign of the times. Money is scarce, and downtown areas of big cities aren't what they once were, and there are so many demands for public funds. A library is just a library.

Except we all know that it is so much more. Robert F. Kennedy, in speaking of the deterioration of things that matter, once said: "For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay."

When you close the doors of a library, you can hear the echoes of the slam forever.